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Conference Reports

Highlights from EuroVis 2019, Part 2

This is the second part of my highlights from EuroVis earlier this year in Porto, Portugal. There are papers about decision making and interaction, as well as a report on the capstone talk and a look to next year’s conference, which will be a bit different. Read more…

Highlights from EuroVis 2019, Part 1

The EuroVis 2019 conference took place in early June this year in Porto, Portugal. While I enjoyed the city and conference venue, I found the program a bit underwhelming this time around. I’ve kept pushing off writing this report because I found myself griping rather than talking about the content. Read more…

IEEE VIS 2018, Part 3: New Approaches, Meet the Founders, Perception and Cognition

The final report from VIS 2018 (see previously here and here) again covers papers, papers, and more papers. There are new ways to specify visualizations, a panel, perception research, as well as new work on how to deal with uncertainty in data. Read more…

IEEE VIS 2018, Part 2: Time, Evaluation, Dashboards, The Future of VIS

While the first part of this report covered mostly workshops and other events, it's all papers from now on. Plus a session on the future of the VIS conference. Read more…

IEEE VIS 2018, Part 1: VisComm, VisInPractice, BELIV, Best Papers

The IEEE VIS conference is the most important outlet for academic research. This year's conference took place in Berlin, Germany. Here is a report on some of the most interesting (to me, anyway) papers, events, and developments, in three parts. Read more…

EuroVis 2018, Wednesday through Friday

EuroVis raged on through the end of the week with talks, posters, and lots of food. This second part covers papers about visualization evaluation, high-dimensional structures, graph layouts, etc., as well as the capstone and closing (with information about next year). Read more…

EuroVis 2018, Monday and Tuesday

EuroVis 2018 in Brno, Czechia, is in full swing. The first two days included workshops, the opening with a very fun and interesting keynote, and some good papers. Read more…

IEEE VIS 2017: A SciVis Perspective

Since my (Robert)'s conference reports are almost entirely focused on InfoVis (and a bit of VAST), I have asked Noeska Smit, medical visualization professor and my collaborator in the Vis Potpourri postings, to write about VIS from the SciVis perspective. Everything below are Noeska's words. Read more…

IEEE VIS 2017: Machine Learning, Diversity, Parties

I've ignored the major new topic this year so far: machine learning. Another new thing this year, though way overdue, was that we finally started to talk about diversity. And then there were the parties. Read more…

IEEE VIS 2017: Perception, Evaluation, Vision Science

Questions of how visualization is read and understood are a common topic in research, and this year was no exception. This part of my IEEE VIS 2017 report covers papers dealing with perceptual issues, the match between visualization and tasks, statistical reasoning, as well as a panel on vision science. Read more…

IEEE VIS 2017: Word Clouds, Stories, Interaction

I usually stick to the InfoVis track at VIS, and that was also the case this time. The papers in this part of my report from VIS 2017 cover text, small visualizations like sparklines and glyphs, tools for showing story structure, and multi-device interaction with data. Read more…

IEEE VIS 2017: Keynote and Capstone

Part 2 of my IEEE VIS 2017 report covers the keynote and capstone talks at the conference. They were not just at opposite ends of the conference, but also about as different as they can be in terms of content and delivery. Read more…

IEEE VIS 2017: Best Papers and Other Awards

The IEEE VIS 2017 conference took place last week in Phoenix, AZ. I’m slower to write about it than in previous years, but to make up for that I’m not going in chronological order this time, but will break this report up in a more logical manner. This first part covers the opening, which included presentations of the best papers from all three tracks plus a new Test of Time award category. Read more…

EuroVis 2017 Conference Report, Part 3

Thursday and Friday at EuroVis brought a few papers on storytelling, a new toolkit for running online studies, a better way to put your list of publications online, and a lot more. Read more…

EuroVis 2017 Conference Report, Part 2

On the first full day of the main EuroVis conference, we learned that estimating correlation from scatterplots may not be as great as we thought, saw a number of new ways to show what is and is not in the data, and got some new tools for making browser-based visualization fast. Read more…

EuroVis 2017 Conference Report, Part 1

EuroVis is currently taking place in Barcelona. In the interest of shorter postings, I’m breaking this report up into three parts. This first part covers the EuroRVVV workshop as well as the opening session and keynote. Read more…

InfoVis Papers at CHI 2017

The two main conferences in visualization are VIS and EuroVis, but recently CHI has also gotten some very interesting submissions (CHI is technically a conference about human-computer interaction, or HCI). This year looked particularly strong, Read more…

VIS 2016 – Thursday, Friday: Empirical Methods, Better Presentations

A panel on empirical methods, papers on time series, and perhaps the best capstone at VIS ever rounded out the conference on Thursday and Friday. Read more…

VIS 2016 – Wednesday, Thursday: Papers and the Death of SciVis

Two more postings about VIS 2016 last week! Wednesday got a lot of us talking, with the Death of SciVis panel. There were also more papers on a variety of topics. Read more…

VIS 2016 – Tuesday

The official opening of the main conference was today, Tuesday. The conference is now in full swing until Friday. Read more…

VIS 2016 – Sunday, Monday: BELIV and Being Contrarian

The early part of IEEE VIS 2016 is already behind us. This includes many workshops, tutorials, as well as the Doctoral Colloquium. It has been an interesting three days (considering Saturday here as well). This posting is less a report as a number of observations from a several discussions and talks. Read more…

EuroVis 2016, Thursday and Friday

After Tuesday and Wednesday, EuroVis continued for the rest of the week. There were papers about visualization, interaction, networks, and other stuff, a dinner in a former church, and finally the capstone. Read more…

EuroVis 2016, Tuesday and Wednesday

EuroVis 2016 is happening this week in Groningen, The Netherlands. This is the report from the first two-and-a-half days, which saw some symposia, a keynote, and many paper presentations. Read more…

OpenVis 2016 Talk Videos and Pointers

The OpenVis Conference had another great selection of talks this year. Here is a list of my favorites, with talk videos and pointers to some additional materials. Read more…

VIS 2015 – Friday

The final day of the conference was much shorter, only one full session and then the closing with the capstone. Here is a report on a few more papers, the capstone, a panel left over from Thursday, and a few random tidbits. Read more…

VIS 2015 – Thursday

Between the sessions, parties, discussions, running, and the occasional short sleep break, I fell a bit behind on the blogging about VIS 2015. After separate postings for Tuesday and Wednesday, this part covers Thursday. The posting about Friday will be short, but squeezing both days into one felt like a bit too much. Read more…

VIS 2015 – Wednesday

The second full day of VIS 2015 brought lots of papers on applications and design studies, and also a panel on solved problems in visualization. As on the first day, I have some observations and thoughts. Read more…

VIS 2015 – Tuesday

IEEE VIS 2015 started today. The first sessions included network visualization and projections, as well as a panel on the use of color in visualization. Read more…

Tableau Papers at IEEE VIS 2015

My colleagues at Tableau Research have three papers at InfoVis next week. They cover guided data exploration, color theory, and data partitioning. Here's a little preview. Read more…

Report: EuroVis 2015

I attended EuroVis 2015 last week in Cagliari, Sardinia. This is the second-most important conference in the academic visualization world, and there were plenty of good sessions to choose from (full and short papers, state-of-the-art reports, and industry sessions). Read more…

Conference Report: CHI 2015

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the CHI 2015 conference in Seoul, South Korea. CHI technically stands for Computer-Human Interaction, but it has become a name rather than an acronym in recent years. And CHI’s scope is very broad, it covers many areas that are not strictly part of HCI (Human-Computer Interaction – why use one acronym when you can have two?). Read more…

VIS 2014 Observations and Thoughts

While I’ve covered individual talks and events at IEEE VIS 2014, there are also some overall observations – positive and negative – I thought would be interesting to write down to see what others were thinking. Read more…

VIS 2014 – Friday

Wow, that was fast! VIS 2014 is already over. This year’s last day was shorter than in previous years, with just one morning session and then the closing session with the capstone talk. Read more…

VIS 2014 – Thursday

Thursday was the penultimate day of VIS 2014. I ended up only going to InfoVis sessions, and unfortunately missed a panel I had been planning to see. The papers were a bit more mixed, but there were agains some really good ones. Read more…

VIS 2014 – Wednesday

Wednesday is more than the halfway point of the conference, and was clearly the high point so far. There were some great papers, the arts program, and I got to see the Bertin exhibit. Read more…

VIS 2014 – Tuesday

The big opening day of the conference, Tuesday, brought us a keynote, talks, and panels. Also, a new trend I really like: many talks end with the URL of a webpage that contains a brief summary of the paper, the PDF, and often even a link to the source code of the tool they developed. Read more…

VIS 2014 – Monday

IEEE VIS 2014 technically began on Saturday, with the first full day open to all attendees being Sunday. Monday continued the workshops and tutorials, and that is where we join our intrepid reporter. Read more…

Tapestry 2014 Announced

After a very successful Tapestry conference in February this year, we have been getting a steady stream of questions from people about another event next year. Now we're finally able to announce next year's event. And it will be awesome, again. Read more…

Report from IEEE VIS 2013 in Atlanta, GA

There were parties, papers, and presentations. The keynote involved ramen, the capstone cited Rams. Lies were told, we watched stories unfold, and stacked bars of gold. The first IEEE VIS took place inside a giant alien, and the dinosaurs were particularly memorable. Read more…

Tapestry, The Conference About Storytelling With Data

Tapestry is a new conference on storytelling with data. While it focuses on visual ways of telling stories in journalism, there will be a broad range of topics, and a line-up of amazing speakers. Read more…

VisWeek 2012 Digest, Part 3

This final installment of the digest sums up a few more thoughts on this year's VisWeek. Inside: SciVis, BioVis, and parties! Read more…

VisWeek 2012 Digest, Part 2

In this second installment, I pick some of the more noteworthy papers and events from Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at VisWeek 2012. There was some remarkable work, which I think and hope will shape the future of visualization research. Read more…

VisWeek 2012 Digest, Part 1

I gorged myself on talks, panels, and tutorials last week. And parties, oh the parties. Time to digest all of it and, um, extract the most important bits. Since there is so much to talk about, I have split this up into three parts. Parts 1 and 2 will discuss individual papers and events, part 3 will add some more general observations. Read more…

VisWeek 2012, Day One

VisWeek 2012 started today, and it started with quite a bang. Here are some observations and highlights from the first day. Read more…

A VisWeek Survival Guide, Part 2

Less than two weeks to go until VisWeek 2012, so it’s time for the crucial second part of the survival guide. There are tons of things to see and do in Seattle, it’s easy to get distracted. Read more…

A VisWeek Survival Guide, Part 1

VisWeek 2012 will be held October 14 to 19 in Seattle, WA. The conference keeps growing, and this year is adding a new industry track. If you consider going, you should register by Friday to get the early registration discount. Read more…

EuroVis 2012, Last Day and Wrap-Up

The last day of EuroVis brought back the sunshine we had seen yesterday, but had missed for the first half of the conference. This was a short day, with only one paper session and the keynote. The latter proved to be quite controversial and interesting. Read more…

EuroVis 2012, Day 3

I missed a few of the papers I wanted to see today, but there were again some interesting ones. The big event of the day was of course the social event at a Heuriger. Read more…

EuroVis 2012, Day 2

Day 2 of EuroVis was a long series of paper presentations, occasionally interrupted with copious amounts of food. Here are some of the highlights. Read more…

EuroVis 2012, Day 1

EuroVis 2012 has officially begun, so here is a brief recap of some of the things I found interesting. Today, that included the EuroRVVV workshop and two papers. Read more…

A EuroVis Survival Guide, Part 2

Only a few more sleeps until EuroVis! As we approach the big date, here are some practical tips and tricks about Vienna, the local culture and the exotic customs of the natives. Read more…

A EuroVis Survival Guide, Part 1

EuroVis 2012 is only about six weeks away, so if you haven't booked your travel or hotel, now is the time. Here are a few pointers on where to stay, transportation options in Vienna, etc. Read more…

VisWeek 2008 Live-Microblog Archive

During VisWeek 2008, I wrote short updates on my website, which I called glimpses (a little pun on tweet). This is an archive of all of those, in reverse chronological order. In my transition to WordPress, I had to get rid of the comments, unfortunately. There were only a small number of those attached to these postings, though. Read more…

InfoVis 2007: InfoVis for the Masses

The InfoVis conference this year had a theme that was not planned, but that made it even more impressive. That theme was InfoVis for the Masses, or Visualization for the People, and it was present throughout the keynote, many paper presentations, the panel, the World Visualization Day BOF, and the capstone. This is the beginning of a new era in visualization, and it is exciting to watch it happen. Read more…

InfoVis Panel: The Impact of Social Data Visualization

Visualization for the masses is a powerful means of communication, in an age where we have access to incredible amounts of data, but still little understanding based of what it all means. I have argued that visualization sets information free, I have criticized Swivel and Many-Eyes, and I have argued for reassessing who our users are. At Vis/InfoVis, I am organizing a panel with people from Many-Eyes, Swivel, and Gapminder. Read more…